Epoch (Transcend Duet #2)(94)
“Yes!” She lifts her wine glass like she’s ready to toast my terribly degrading speech on women. “I pick the guys who are too into their jobs. Too much a mama’s boy, not enough brains to talk about anything but the size of their dicks and not enough decency to bring a girl flowers or a sympathy card when her dog dies.”
I cringe. “Sorry about your dog.”
“Oh…” she waves her hand at me “…my dog didn’t die. I just said that to get out of a catastrophic date last week. But he didn’t know my dog really didn’t die. Where were the flowers and sympathy card?”
I laugh. She’s definitely trouble.
“Mathias, if my dog died tonight and you knew about it, you’d send flowers, right?”
Yep. Every single shade of trouble. Why has trouble never looked or felt so good?
“Absolutely.”
Her lips twist. “You know what I need?”
I grab my beer, tipping back the last two gulps before slamming it onto the bar harder than I intend to do. “I think I do.”
And fuck me, déjà vu … I know what she’s going to say before she says it, because she’s said it before and I’ve heard it before.
At the same time we say, “A real boyfriend.”
“I think a part of you will be mine to love in every life.”
The End
Acknowledgments
Once upon a time I told my mom, Leslie, that I wanted to write a book about reincarnation. This is where my epilogue of gratitude begins.
Mom, your wide-eyed enthusiasm over my idea gave me the courage to follow my creative instinct. You’re always there to hold my hand and take this journey with me, researching and sharing information to help make my dreams a reality. You’ve done this forever.
Tim, Logan, Carter, and Asher—my favorite guys in the world—because you hug me, hold me, love me, and sometimes feed me when inspiration demands all of my attention. Our life is the greatest happily-ever-after.
I’m often asked about where I get ideas for stories. My go-to answer is “everywhere.” That’s only partly true. While my sister, Kambra, is busy being Super Mom, she texts me story ideas, songs, and where she imagines my work in progress going. She might not get a shower every day, but she does a superb job of feeding my creativity.
Shauna—Queen of Names—stalked me after she read my first two books. I think. She’ll probably read this and correct me on that detail. Anyway … what started out as a reader sending occasional messages to an author, has turned into a lifelong friendship which includes a first meeting in Vegas, an epic couples road trip, a car ride through the Midwest with bags of potato chips, and the most random daily texts. Nearly every character in this duet was named by Shauna. In real life, Swayze is the name of her favorite waitress and a name that grew on us throughout the book.
Jennifer Beach, aka World’s Best Assistant, puts up with me at my worst. She rescues me on a daily basis, holds me together, and solves my problems. And she sends vegan goodies to my house on special occasions.
My newsletter subscribers get a standing ovation from me. Transcend started out as an exclusive newsletter story that I spoon fed to my subscribers, two chapters at a time, for over a year. Not everyone jumped on the slow-burn train, but I owe a huge thank you to those readers that navigated this journey with me. Some of whom had never read any of my other books—a fact that blows my mind! Your feedback helped shape this story. I listened to your wishes, fears, and even your threats. ;-)
So much gratitude goes to my editing team. My beta readers sacrifice their reading enjoyment to catch early errors and find holes and discrepancies in my story. Leslie, Kambra, Shauna, Tim, Sherri, Sian, and Jennifer, you rock! My cantankerous editor, Maxann Dobson with The Polished Pen, has been with me from the beginning. And this could be the end for us if cantankerous doesn’t go over well.
Eyes. I like lots of eyes on my manuscript. Thank you to my additional proofreaders, Monique Tarver, Allison Riley, Erika Nielsen, and Bethany Castaneda for raking through my words one last time.
I love these book covers! Thank you, Elias, for having the perfect Nate hair to make the cover of Transcend so tastefully sexy. To Wong Sim for capturing the perfect image of Elias. And a huge thank you to Sarah Hansen with Okay Creations for designing the beautiful covers.
Thank you to Jennifer Watson, Sarah Ferguson, and the rest of the team with Social Butterfly PR for giving my books so much visibility.
Paul Salvette with BB eBooks is a formatting unicorn. I’ve never seen magic happen so quickly.
And finally to my growing village of friends comprised of readers, authors, and bloggers graciously willing to share my words and support me along my journey, I owe you an infinity of gratitude.
If you liked The Transcend Duet, check out the Jack & Jill Series. Here’s a sneak peek of End of Day.
Chapter One
Day
Four graves.
Four caskets.
Two bodies.
A throng of family and friends mourned the loss of four innocent lives under dapple gray skies in a cemetery nestled at the bottom of a hillside just miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. A DEA agent and his wife were murdered a week earlier and their two adult children were reported dead in an apartment building the following day. Investigators reported the cause of death—self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Those same investigators collected a bag of cash at a drop location in exchange for their report which led to two empty caskets and headstones carved with the names Jessica Maeve Day and Jude Paxton Day.